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Seafood Risotto
Recipe Gets Noticed
The Netherlands — June 6, 2004 —
This article, published in the Netherlands, describes a tremendous seafood risotto personally prepared by our own
Ed van de Schootbrugge of More Than Gourmet Europe. It begins: "What gives a meal that heavenly, mouth-watering flavour? Not usually how the meat is roasted or the vegetables cooked. No, the sauce is the secret. And especially if it’s home made..."
English
Translation:
A really good sauce is just
heavenly
What gives a meal that heavenly,
mouth-watering flavour? Not usually how the meat is roasted or the
vegetables cooked. No, the sauce is the secret. And especially if it's
home made.
Sauce is what fills the gaps
between the food. And a good sauce is that heavenly connection between two
or three flavours which surprises you every time - how is it possible
that, to keep it simple, a piece of cauliflower and a chop can be coated
so lovingly with a simple cheese sauce? A chef can show his temperament
with a sauce. One day a little extra pepper, another day a strong dose of
sage, simply because it smells so delicious. For restaurants too, the
sauce is their calling card. Preparing a piece of meat, cooking
vegetables, that isn't too difficult is it. But what do we pour over this?
Until about thirty years ago, the Netherlands knew little else than the
white sauce, with a bit of cheese for the more adventurous, and the famous
dash of water in the frying pan. Not that it wasn't delicious. But
suddenly basements, cafeterias and ice-cream parlours were converted into
bistros. What an invention!
Potatoes went into the oven
wrapped in aluminum foil, to be served in their skins and topped with a
sour cream and garlic sauce. Fantastic. Honestly, I witnessed a marital
argument, whereby the wife had stayed at home sick while her husband had a
little too much garlic sauce in the recently opened bistro. The good man
cheerfully entered the sick room only to be kicked out unceremoniously a
few seconds later, having been told that he should be ashamed of himself.
Feeling ashamed, yes that's
something I know a little about. Having just left home, I came up with the
idea that girls who were thirsty perhaps drunk more, so that naturally
left the trapdoor wide open. I therefore started to make sauces pretty
early on, to accompany the steak I served them. Sauces made with yogurt,
sour cream or evaporated milk if I had nothing else in. With stock cubes
and a bit of extra salt. Cheers.
Anyone who has ever made homemade
sauces will have stopped falling for the handy, synthetic flavourings out
of packets, pots and cans. They're dreadful. With all respect, I don't
even understand what people find handy about leaving the most important
part of cooking to a product that must unavoidably have a mat, average
taste as it is produced in such bulk. And if you look at what's in it …This
led to the gradual disappearance of the stock cube from my kitchen, to
make way for more and more pure herbs. An example? That dreadful spaghetti
sauce. I admit, when I started to make it I used mince, a packet and a bit
of water. Gradually that changed to a bit of onion, garlic, mince,
tomatoes and oregano. Now I put the tomatoes, onion, garlic and oregano in
the frying pan, add a bit of oil and turn on the heat, add a bit of water
and then let it simmer. Then I put it all through the sieve. Fry the
mince, pour off the fat. Add the sauce. Salt and pepper, bit of mature
cheese and: "Dad, can I have some more?"
The essence can't be found in a
packet. Says he. But what exactly is this article about? About a little
pot. From the brand More than Gourmet. When something special is called
for. There's me going on about making everything ourselves, but that's
just not possible. It's fine the first couple of times. Like ordering half
a carcass of bones from the butcher and letting them soak and simmer, but
the third time - that girl won't wait for ever - you naturally put that
pot of highly concentrated beef stock in your trolley.
And that's how I struggled on
until I saw the light one day in Spain. In a back-street restaurant in
Santiago de Compostella Marcelo Tejedor, chef at restaurant Marcelo,
served me with a scallop, topped with a slice of ham, and poured a tiny
bit of sauce over it. Ding dong, ding dong! And that wasn't the bells of
the impressive cathedral, it was my taste buds, shouting to my brain cells
that a miracle had happened. "Oh, that sauce. It's made of
lentils", said the man nonchalantly. The quest began again. For weeks
I messed around with lentils before I got a sauce that very vaguely
resembled his creation. Nothing left but to give him a ring. So with the
help of someone who spoke Spanish, I screamed down the phone asking for
the recipe. The secret: beef stock, but boiled down for two days. No
wonder, or perhaps that's precisely what it was. What happens with the
stock as it is reduced further and further, so that it ultimately embraces
all flavours and transforms your mouth into the gateway to heaven? It is
the combination of reduced collagens from the bones and the condensation
of flavour. Like in Chinese food when they add a bit of cornflour to the
stir-fry, the collagen in the bones binds flavours and moisture.
Okay, so we have already
established that we are too lazy to make such concentrates ourselves. And
that the supermarkets offer no solution because of the dulling of
flavours, the chemical flavourings and large amounts of salt added. That
explains my enthusiasm for a product like More than Gourmet. Made from
natural ingredients, the pure essence of flavour. Glacés, stock, chicken,
lamb, beef, fish, vegetable. It comes in small packs. Which is a godsend
because until recently only professional chefs know about this brand and
it came in big tins, which wouldn't even fit in my kitchen. You have to go
to a bit of trouble, but www.morethangourmet.com can help. A couple of
recipes follow - full of flavour. But for anyone who wants to join me in a
further adventure: Put a wonderful beef glacé in a pan and dilute it
slightly. In it, cook lentils, which have been soaked for two hours, for
ten minutes. Sieve, add salt and pepper to taste and serve with a plain
piece of fish or over just-done scallops. I bet she'll stay asleep!
Risotto with fish stock
We left cooking with this pot of
gold to Ed van de Schootbrugge, chef and long-time advisor to, for
example, the international airline catering industry. Nice bit of
information: at a height of nine and a half kilometres you only taste
sixty percent of what you would be able to taste on the ground. No wonder
that most people don't really look forward to an airline meal, however
appetising it might look.
Ed van de Schootbrugge of More
Than Gourmet Europe opened a new facility "Koken bij de molen"
in Laren. Wonderful food and a long table where people can sit for
demonstrations, lessons and product development. And he is the
representative of the pot of culinary gold referred to alongside, the
stocks and sauces from More than Gourmet. We therefore set Ed van de
Schootbrugge to work and he came up with a risotto, that disgustingly
delicious dish that we hardly ever make at home because we think it is so
difficult. And it actually isn't. All you have to do is keep your eye on
it and make sure you have a wonderful glacé de fruits de mer. In everyday
language: fish stock.
Ingredients: 3 nice ripe
tomatoes, 4 pieces of finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, 30 g butter, two
onions - finely chopped, 450 g large peeled prawns - diced, 450 g cooked
mussels without shells, 1 clove of garlic, 250 g risotto rice, 750 ml Glace
de Fruits de Mer Gold® (already diluted), 10 g tarragon -
finely chopped, 10 g parsley - chopped, 125 ml dry vermouth
Method: Cut the tomatoes in
half, roast until light brown, allow to cool, then dice. Mix with the
sun-dried tomatoes. Sauté half of the onion in the butter and add the
mussels and garlic. Cook until tender.
Now sauté the other half of the onion in the butter, then add the risotto
rice and allow it to absorb the butter. Add the stock and cook the rice
until done, stirring continuously (15-25 minutes). Now add the tomato and
the mussel mixture, with the tarragon, and season with salt and pepper.
Then stir in the vermouth and add the parsley shortly before serving. So
incredibly tasty that the whole family will spontaneously get up and give
you a kiss!
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